A note on the words: gachi-chuka is Japanese slang for Chinese restaurants in Japan that cook for Chinese tastes rather than adapting to Japanese ones. Hunan is a province in south-central China. Mapo tofu is tofu simmered in a spicy bean-paste sauce, ebi-chili is shrimp in a sweet-spicy chili sauce, and chinjao rosu is stir-fried shredded meat with green peppers. Negi is Japanese long onion.
Table of Contents hide
Lianxiangge Hunan Cuisine on Tabelog (English) — opening hours, payment details and the Japanese address are kept up to date there, not here.
Hello, Hangover Meshi here. A new place opened right by Akasaka-mitsuke station, and it goes by the name “Lianxiangge Hunan Cuisine.” It looks every inch a Chinese restaurant, and apparently it is the first Japanese branch of a restaurant that is popular back in China. A place where you can taste proper Hunan cooking. Well now, thank you for coming to Akasaka!
A long-established Chinese restaurant that holds a perfect five stars on Dianping, sometimes called China’s answer to Tabelog, has finally opened its first store in Japan!
That is gachi-chuka if anything is! I had to go.
So off I went. Apparently they open at 10:30 for lunch, ha. You could even use it for brunch!
The Four Signatures
Fresh Beef Stir-Fried with Celery — 2,178 yen
Pork and Green Peppers Stir-Fried with Chili — 1,738 yen
Pork Belly and Potato, Steam-Baked — 2,068 yen
Mapo Tofu — 1,078 yen
The Eight Standards
Bamboo Shoots Stir-Fried with Smoked Pork — 2,178 yen
Pork Belly Braised with Mustard Greens — 1,848 yen
Liver and Chinese Chives — 1,298 yen
Ebi-Chili — 1,848 yen
Pig’s Trotter Braised Hunan-Style in a Clay Pot — 1,738 yen
Eggplant and Ground Meat in a Spicy Stir-Fry — 1,298 yen
Chicken Stir-Fried with Chili — 1,738 yen
Chinjao Rosu — 1,738 yen
There is a group called the Four Signatures and a group called the Eight Standards (sounds a bit like a lineup of champions, ha).
Four signature dishes and eight standards. Every one of them looks good!
You cannot eat all that much at lunch, and there were two of us, so we picked three dishes to share.
First, one of the Four Signatures: pork and green peppers stir-fried with chili!
An orthodox stir-fry. One bite in, and the seasoning is seriously delicious. You can taste the spices, and there is plenty of fat, so it eats substantial. A flavor that goes brilliantly with rice. For all that fat it is not heavy-going, which is nice. Crisp green peppers, tasty pork and a generous amount of garlic go together perfectly. Tasty!!
And look, it comes with a flame, ha.
The duck stir-fried with chili arrives on a stand holding a lit solid-fuel burner.
Properly hot, and above all the spice on this is irresistible! So good. The duck is good too. There is a fair amount of bone, so the way to eat it is to bite right in. Its flavor, different from chicken, goes very well with the spice, the heat and the freshness of the negi.
This one also came with a flame under it, so the mapo tofu stays hot the whole time.
Come to think of it, having it stay warm indefinitely is a fine thing. One bite in, and yes, the mapo tofu is a sure bet! So good!
The savor of the sauce is proper Chinese cooking, a deep flavor with plenty of tofu. The heat is uncompromising and fully present, and behind it a sweetness spreads out softly. You feel the sweetness and savor more strongly than the heat — another dish that goes brilliantly with rice. This mapo is good.
We only managed three dishes, but every one of them was seriously delicious. And since this is presumably close to the flavor eaten in China, being able to have the real thing in Tokyo is not something you get every day. I had half expected gachi-chuka to feel harder for a Japanese palate to approach, but every dish had a superb balance of savor, spice and heat, and while there is a fair amount of fat, that is exactly what makes it good. If you leave the fat out of Chinese cooking, it is not Chinese cooking any more!! This place is going to require another visit at night, with drinks. I am definitely going!!!
Lianxiangge Hunan Cuisine (Chinese / Akasaka-mitsuke Station, Nagatacho Station, Akasaka Station)
Tabelog lunch rating ★★★☆☆ 3.7
I ate here and paid for it myself. Nothing on this site is a comped meal.
One more for the road?
